wwe2kuniversefandomcom-20200213-history
World Heavyweight Championship
The World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by WWE on the Raw brand. The current champion is Seth Rollins, who is in his second reign. It is one of two top championships in WWE, complementing the WWE Championship, and one of three top championships from 2006 to 2010 with the addition of the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. The title was established under the Raw brand in 2002, after Raw and SmackDown became distinct brands under WWE, and moved between both brands on different occasions (mainly as a result of the WWE draft) until August 29, 2011, when all programming became full roster "supershows". The World Heavyweight Championship was retired at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs on December 15, 2013, when it was unified with the WWE Championship. Triple H was the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion, with Randy Orton being the last. Its resurrection came as a result of the re-introduction of the brand split and subsequent draft on July 19, 2016 in which the WWE Championship, the promotion's original world title, became exclusive to SmackDown. The title was one of six to be represented by the historic Big Gold Belt, first introduced in 1986. Its heritage can be traced back to the first world heavyweight championship, thereby giving the belt a legacy over 100 years old, the oldest in the world. Resurrection With the reintroduction of the WWE brand extension, a draft took place on the SmackDown Live premiere episode on July 19, 2016 and then-WWE Champion Dean Ambrose was drafted to the SmackDown brand. At Battleground on July 24, Ambrose successfully defended the title in a triple threat match against Raw draftees Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, leaving Raw without a world title. On the following episode of Raw, Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon and then-Raw General Manager Mick Foley resurrected the World Heavyweight Championship to serve as the brand's top championship. The inaugural champion after its reactivation was crowned at SummerSlam in a singles match. Seth Rollins was automatically set for that match as he was Raw's number one draft pick and was not pinned in the WWE Championship match at Battleground. His opponent was determined by two fatal four-way matches on Raw, with the winners wrestling each other in a singles match. Finn Bálor won the first fatal four-way by defeating Cesaro, Kevin Owens, and Rusev while Roman Reigns won the second by defeating Chris Jericho, Sami Zayn, and Sheamus. Bálor then defeated Reigns and was added to the title match. At SummerSlam on August 21, Bálor defeated Rollins to become the champion. Brand designation history The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the World Heavyweight Championship between the Raw and SmackDown brands. Reigns Main article: List of World Heavyweight Champions The World Heavyweight Championship was the third world championship introduced into the promotion in 2002. The inaugural champion was Triple H, and there have been 30 different official champions overall and 9 vacancies. The longest reigning champion is Brock Lesnar, who held the title from April 2, 2017 to August 19, 2018, for a total of 504 days. Big Show is the shortest reigning champion, his first reign lasting for 2 minutes. Edge holds the record for most reigns with 7. Seth Rollins is the current champion in his second reign. He won the title by defeating Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam on August 11, 2019. Category:World championship Category:Raw